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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Although Irish has been used as a literary
language for more than a thousand years (see Irish
literature), and in a form intelligible to contemporary
speakers since at least the sixteenth century, modern Irish
literature is thought to begin with the revival movement
in 1896.

Contents

Early
revival

To start with, the revivalists preferred the style used at the
latest stages of classical Irish, notably by Geoffrey
Keating (Seathrún Céitinn) in his History of Ireland, or Foras
Feasa ar Éirinn. However, Keating's Irish was soon ousted by
popular dialects especially championed by the priest and native
speaker from the Coolea-Muskerry area, Peadar Ua
Laoghaire, who in the 1890s published, in a serialised form, a
folkloristic novel strongly influenced by the storytelling
tradition of the Gaeltacht, Séadna. His other works
include the autobiography Mo Scéal Féin and retellings of
classical Irish stories as well as a recently reissued adaptation
of Don Quixote.

Ua Laoghaire was soon followed by Patrick Pearse, who was to be executed
as one of the leaders of the Easter Rising. Pearse learnt Irish in Rosmuck and wrote sentimental
stories about the Irish-speaking countryside, as well as
nationalistic poems in a more classical, Keatingesque style.

Pádraic Ó Conaire wrote realistic,
even naturalistic, stories about the life of Irish emigrants in England about the turn of the
century; he was also one of the first people ever to use Irish for
journalism. His most important book is his only novel,
Deoraíocht (Exile), which combines realism with
absurd elements. He was to die in the nineteen twenties, not yet
fifty years old. Ó Conaire became something of a mythical figure of
the folklore.

Writing from the
Gaeltachtaí

In the nineteen twenties, researchers went to the Gaeltacht to record the
lives of native speakers in authentic dialect. The best-known books
of this crop were the autobiographies from Great Blasket Island,
Peig by Peig
Sayers, An tOileánach ("The Islandman") by Tomás Ó Criomhthain, and Fiche
Bliain ag Fás ("Twenty Years a-Growing") by Muiris Ó
Súilleabháin.

Arguably the most interesting of the Gaeltacht autobiographies is Micí Mac
Gabhann's Rotha Mór an tSaoil – translated into
English as The big wheel of life, written in Ulster Irish. As the
English title shows, it deals with the Klondike gold rush, "ruathar an
óir", at the end of the nineteenth century, but also with the
hardship Irish gold-rushers had to endure on their way to "tír an
óir", the gold country.

Another newcomer of the nineteen twenties was the prolific
writer of rural novels, Séamus Ó Grianna (pen name "Máire").
Séamus Ó Grianna's most important contribution to modern literature
in the language might be the fact that he persuaded his brother Seosamh
(who called himself Seosamh Mac Grianna in Irish) to
write in Irish. Seosamh was a less prolific and less fortunate
writer than his brother, and was stricken by a severe depressive
psychosis in 1935, so that he had to spend the rest of his life –
more than fifty years – at a psychiatric hospital. Before his
psychosis, however, he was able to finish a novel about the arrival
of modern times in his own Gaeltacht, called An Druma Mór -
"The Big Drum", or "The Fife and Drum Band", as well as an
introspective travelogue, Mo Bhealach Féin - "My Own Way".
His last novel, Dá mBíodh Ruball ar an Éan - "If the Bird
Had a Tail" – a study of the alienation of a Gaeltacht man in Dublin – was left unfinished, a fact suggested
by the book title.

Irish-language modernism

Modernist literature was developed
further by Máirtín Ó Cadhain, a schoolmaster
from Connemara, who was the Irish-language littérateur engagé par excellence. He
was not only active in the IRA - he spent The
Emergency years, – i.e. the years of the Second World War – at a detention camp in
Curach Chill Dara (Curragh, County Kildare) together with other IRA men. At the
camp, he wrote his modernist masterpiece, the novel Cré na
Cille – "The Clay of the Churchyard". Reminiscent of some
Latin American novels (notably Redoble por Rancas by Manuel Scorza, or
Pedro
Páramo by Juan
Rulfo), this novel is a chain of voices of the dead speaking
from the churchyard, where they go on forever quarrelling about
their bygone life in their village. The novel is a resounding
refutation of the romantic view of the Gaeltacht typical of the early years of the
linguistic revival: Ó Cadhain shows clearly that there are social
conflicts inside the Gaeltachtaí, too.

In addition to Cré na Cille, Máirtín Ó Cadhain wrote
several collections of short stories (one 'short' story, "Fuíoll
Fuine" in the collection An tSraith dhá Tógáil, can count
as a short novel): Idir Shúgradh agus Dáiríre, An Braon
Broghach, Cois Caoláire, An tSraith dhá Tógáil, An tSraith Tógtha,
An tSraith ar Lár. An important part of his writings are his
journalism, essays, and pamphlets, that can be found in such
collections as Ó Cadhain i bhFeasta, Caiscín, and
Caithfear Éisteacht.

Máirtín Ó Cadhain was a great stylistic innovator. Although his
Irish was very much his native dialect – even in such contexts
where a less dialectal style would have been appropriate – he was
not afraid of enriching his Irish with constructed neologisms and loanwords from other dialects
including Scottish
Gaelic.

Modernism and renewal were also represented by several writers
not of Gaeltacht descent, such as Eoghan Ó Tuairisc, Diarmuid Ó
Súilleabháin, and Breandán Ó Doibhlin. Ó Tuairisc wrote poetry and
plays, as well as two important novels about historical themes:
L'Attaque, and Dé Luain. Diarmuid Ó Súilleabháin
authored a realistic depiction of a de facto divorced man's
dilemmas in a country where divorces do not officially exist,
Caoin Thú Féin, as well as several other novels, including
a jail journal, Ciontach. Breandán Ó Doibhlin introduced
introspective writing into Irish with Néal Maidine agus Tine
Oíche.

Contemporary literature in
Irish

Among the most important contemporary writers in Irish also
being native speakers are Pádraic Breathnach, Micheál Ó Conghaile, Pádraig Ó
Cíobháin, and Cathal Ó Searcaigh. The first three
are novelists and short story writers. A poet of outstanding
ability in terms of language and imagery is Diarmuid Johnson whose
Súil Saoir still awaits adequate criticism and appreciation in
literary circles for its sheer depth of vision and understanding of
the Irish literary tradition, one of several traditions which
inform much of the language and metaphor of the collection. One of
Johnson's most distinguishing traits is the ability to left unsaid
(in words) that which most other poets struggle in vain to say.
This he achieves through his ability to verbalise through imagery.
This is an imagery which he paints onto a landscape which more
often than not evades those unfamiliar with the rich tapestry of
Irish language writing which began to be woven in the Old Irish
period (700-900) and continues to the present day in the Irish
language of the Gaeltacht. Cathal Ó Searcaigh's work has mostly
been lyric poetry, but his most important and accessible creation
is certainly his engaging travelogue about Nepal, Seal i Neipeal. Lorcán S. Ó
Treasaigh has written a popular autobiography called Céard é
English? (What is English?) about growing up as a
native Irish speaker in Dublin. Described by Tomás Mac Síomóín as the
Irish Language's first post-modern novel, Colm Ó
Snodaigh's novella, Pat the Pipe - Píobaire, charts
the days of Pat, mad-cap Dublin busker and his adventures around
Dublin's streets in the nineties.